There are four major sticking points to successfully selling books on amazon. I call these possible sticking points the four hurdles because, just like a foot race, if you trip over even a single one of these hurdles, you lose the customer and the sale.
What are the Four Hurdles?
Cover
Book Description
Reviews
Price
Every customer goes through the same process when they buy a novel. First they see the cover, then they read the book description, next they check out the reviews, and finally they consider the price. If all of the pieces line up with customer expectation, they’ll click the buy now button. If any one of these elements fail the sniff test, the shopper will move on. Or to stick with our allegory, if the shopper trips over a single hurdle, you lose the sale.
Make sure all four elements are in place so that it’s easy for readers to click the buy button on your book.
Let’s go over the hurdles in a little more detail.
Cover: You need a professional cover. It should be every bit as good as other covers in your genre and, more importantly, the cover should make the subject of the book immediately clear. This is not the place to get cute or clever and try to break the mold. You want your book to fit in, not stand out. If you wrote a spy thriller, the cover should have a guy with a gun. If you wrote a romance, you want a guy and a girl about to kiss. I should be able to look at your cover and know exactly what kind of story it is without having to read the description. Needless to say, if you wrote a book about star-crossed teenage vampire lovers and your cover shows a man wearing and suit and carrying a briefcase, you just failed the first hurdle. For more on covers, check out this blog.
selling books on amazon
Book Description: The book description is arguably the most important hurdle. Unfortunately, most authors treat the description as an afterthought. The description is going to make or break your sales. You might not have the best cover the world has seen—my covers for the Jake Noble Series aren’t groundbreaking—but a great description will still clinch the sale.
It should go without saying, but your book description should be grammatically correct and free of spelling errors. You’d be amazed how often I see typos or spelling mistakes in book descriptions. If your description is full of typos the reader is going to assume the book is more of the same.
Beyond spelling and typos, the description needs to pique the reader’s interest. As any good salesman will tell you, sell the sizzle not the steak. A good book description will give the reader just enough to capture their interest. Don’t bore the reader with a complete overview of the story world and all the characters. Give a brief sketch of the main character(s) and what they’re trying to accomplish then promise excitement, adventure, romance or mystery. Remember readers want an experience. They want to live vicariously through characters in imaginary worlds. People who read Noble Man want to experience what it’s like to be a spy in a life or death struggle. I like to think I provide that. For more on book descriptions, click here or check out Bryan Cohen’s excellent book.
Bottom line, remember the reader doesn’t care about your characters or the intricate plot or the original concept. They are looking for an emotional experience. If you can promise them an experience (and deliver) they’ll click the buy button.
Reviews: Reviews are a sore subject for most authors. If you’ve published a book you know what I’m talking about. Reviews are like hen’s teeth. I’ve heard less than one percent of people who read a book will review it, but if my sales are anything to go by, the real number is a lot lower than one percent. You’ll need to sell somewhere around 10k books to collect 20 reviews.
But people don’t buy books without reviews!
Yeah, that’s the catch. But there is something you can do. You aren’t going to like it. Sit down and prepare yourself. Ready? Give away a bunch of free copies.
I know. Giving away free copies of your hard work is a real kick in the gut, but there’s really no way around this that I can see. And if it makes you feel any better, major authors and publishers give away thousands of free books as well. Of course, publishers send free books to the blowhards at the New York Times Book Review, but you’ll have to settle for the lowly Amazon reader. The good news is, the hard-working blue collar folks you find on Amazon will give genuine reviews, not the fluff pieces you find in the Times.
selling books on amazon
If you dig in your heels on this point, I can’t help you. Your book isn’t going to sell until you get reviews and you aren’t going to get reviews until a bunch of people have read it. Once you’ve got twenty or thirty reviews your book will start to sell itself. Read this article for more on reviews.
Price: The novel’s price needs to be in line with A; other books in your genre and B; your status as an author. In other words, you can’t price your book higher than all the other books on the market and you can’t ask for a bunch of money if nobody knows your name.
Are you a household name? Do people stop you on the street for your autograph? By all means, price your book at 9.99. If you’re a local yokel you’ll have to price your book low enough that readers are willing to take a chance on someone they’ve never heard of.
You also must price within your genre. If you’re writing romance, and all the other books on the best-seller list are priced at 2.99 then yours should be 2.99 or lower. You want to make it easy for the reader to get into your series. Usually that means a .99c price tag. I’ve sold thousands of copies of Noble Man because I’ve got a good cover, an intriguing description, great reviews, and an easy price point. At less than a dollar, people pick up a copy just to check it out. They figure for .99c they’ll give it a try. If they enjoy it, they’ll buy the other books in the series. If I tried to price the first book at three or four dollars, my sales would drop off a cliff. At that price, far fewer readers would be willing to take a chance on an unknown author.
Here’s another way to think of it;
Don’t sell books.
Build an army of loyal fans.
I’d much rather have ten thousand rabid fans who buy each new book I write than sell 100k copies of a single book. Ten thousand fans mean ten thousand sales every time you release a new novel.
Get these four hurdles right and you’re going to sell books. Get them wrong and your book is DOA.
selling books on amazon
